Bek even talked once or twice with the wistful seer, Ryer Ord Star, but she was so reclusive and shy that she avoided everyone except Walker, whom she followed everywhere. As if in thrall to the Druid, she was his shadow on the airship, trailing after him like a small child, hanging on his every word and watching his every move. Her fixation was a steady topic of conversation for everyone, but never within Walker’s hearing. No one cared to broach the strangeness of the young woman’s attachment directly to the Druid when it was apparent it did not matter to him.
Of Truls Rohk, there was still no sign. Panax insisted he was aboard, but Bek never saw any evidence of it.
Then, ten days out of land’s view, they came in sight of the island of Flay Creech. It was nearing midday, the sky clouded and gray, the weather beginning to turn raw for the first time since they had set out. Thunderheads were massed to the west, approaching at a slow, steady roll across the back of a stillcalm wind, and the burn of the sun through gaps in the thinner clouds east was giving way before cooler air. Below them, the sea rose and fell in gentle waves, a silvertipped azure carpet where it broke against the shores of the island ahead, but beyond, out on the horizon, it was dark and threatening.
Flay Creech was not a welcoming sight. The island was gray and barren, a collection of mostly smooth mounds irrigated by an irregular patchwork of deep gullies that deposited seawater in shallow ponds all across its surface. Save for clusters of scrub trees and heavy weed patches, nothing grew. The island was small, barely a half mile across, and marked by a rocky outcropping just off the coast to the south that bore a distinct resemblance to a lizard’s head with its mouth agape and its crest lifted in warning. On the map that Walker had drawn for the ship’s company, the lizard’s head was the landmark that identified the island.
Redden Alt Mer took the Jerle Shannara slowly around the island, keeping several hundred feet above its surface, while the ship’s company gathered at the railings to survey the forbidding terrain. Bek looked downward with the others, but saw nothing of interest. There was no sign of life and no movement of any kind. The island appeared deserted.
When they had completed several passes, Walker signaled to Hunter Predd, who with his complement of Wing Riders had been gliding silently overhead. The grizzled rider swung close aboard Obsidian and shook his head. They had seen nothing either. But they would not descend to the island for a closer look, Bek knew, because they were under orders from the Druid not to land on any of the three islands where the talismans were hidden until a party from the airship had gone down first. The Rocs and their riders were too valuable to risk, if lost, they could not be replaced.
Walker called Redden Alt Mer and Ard Patrinell to his side, and Bek and Quentin eased nearer to listen to what was being said.
“What do you see?” the Druid was asking the Rover Captain as they drew close enough to hear.
“The same as you. Nothing. But there’s something not right about the look of the island. What made those gullies that crisscross everything?”
However unhappy Redden Alt Mer was, Ard Patrinell was even more so. “I don’t like what I’m seeing at all. The terrain of this island doesn’t fit with anything I’ve ever come across. It’s the shape of it. False, somehow. Unnatural.”
Walker nodded. Bek could tell that he was troubled, too. There was something odd about the formation of the gullies and the smoothness of the island.
The Druid walked over to where Ryer Ord Star stood watching and bent down to speak softly with her. The seer listened carefully, then pressed her thin, small hands against her breast, closed her eyes and went completely still. Bek watched with the others, wondering what was happening. Then her eyes opened, and she began to speak to the Druid in rapid, breathless sentences. When she was finished, he held her gaze for a moment, squeezed her hand, and turned away.